Vollard Suite
Prints from the Vollard Suite | |
---|---|
Artist | Pablo Picasso |
Year | 1930–1937 |
The Vollard Suite is a set of 100 etchings in the neoclassical style by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, produced from 1930 to 1937. Named after the art dealer who commissioned them, Ambroise Vollard (1866–1939), the suite is in a number of museums. More than 300 sets were created.
An earlier Vollard Suite was commissioned from Paul Gauguin in 1898–99, a smaller group in woodcut and monotype, which Vollard did not like.
History
In 1930 Picasso was commissioned to produce the etchings by the art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard in exchange for paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne.[1]
Picasso worked extensively on the set in the spring of 1933, and completed the suite in 1937.[1] It took a further two years for the printmaker Roger Lacourière to finish printing the first 230 sets of the series, but the death of Vollard in 1939 and the Second World War meant that the sets only started coming onto the art market in the 1950s.[1] The completed edition consisted of 250 copies on Montval paper watermarked "Vollard" or "Picasso", fifty copies on Montval paper watermarked "Papeterie Montgolfier à Montval", and three copies on parchment, hand-signed.[2]
A 1971 exhibition of the suite in Madrid was attacked by a paramilitary group, the Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey (Warriors of Christ the King) who tore the pictures and poured acid over the prints. The group attacked things associated with Spanish exiles like Picasso who aligned themselves with the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War.[3]
A spinning residential building in Brazil was named Suite Vollard after the suite.[4]
More than 300 sets were created, but many were broken up and the prints sold separately.[5] A complete set is owned by the National Gallery of Australia[6] and a complete set was acquired by the British Museum in 2011 after a donation of £1 million from financier Hamish Parker, a director of Mondrian Investment Partners. The donation was in memory of Parker's father, Major Horace Parker.[5] It had been the British Museum's ambition to own the set and the acquisition was described by the museum's director, Neil MacGregor, as "one of the institution's most important acquisitions of the past 50 years".[5]
The series
The works are not based on a literary source, and are not titled, although according to the Fundación Juan March, "Some of the themes have a remote origin in Honoré de Balzac's short story Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece, 1831), which greatly impressed Picasso. It tells the story of a painter's efforts to capture life itself on canvas through the means of feminine beauty".[7] The works are inscribed by Picasso with the year month and day that he drew the image.[1] Writing in the Daily Telegraph Richard Dorment claims that as Picasso took such a long time to create the suite, "the imagery and the emotional register of the prints constantly shifts to reflect Picasso's erotic and artistic obsessions, marital vicissitudes, and the darkening political situation in Europe...In the years Picasso worked on the series, fascism spread through Europe, and civil war erupted in Spain. These anxieties also found their way into the Vollard Suite, so that by the time you reach the end of the show and the last images of the blind minotaur, you feel that you are in a different emotional universe from the sunlit arcadia you encountered at the show's beginning".[1]
The suite begins with prints exploring the theme of the sculptor's studio, Picasso's mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, is portrayed as a model lying in the arms of a bearded sculptor. Picasso had recently been inspired by Marie-Thérèse to create a series of monumental bronze heads in the neoclassical style.[1] Picasso had also recently been commissioned by the publisher Albert Skira in 1928 to create original intaglio prints for his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which appeared in 1931.[6]
Dorment comments that a minotaur appears, joining in scenes of bacchic excess, but the minotaur is transformed from a gentle lover and bon vivant into a rapist and devourer of women, reflecting Picasso's turbulent relationships with Marie-Thérèse and his wife Olga.[1] In a third transformation, the minotaur becomes pathetic, blind and impotent, he wanders by night, led by a little girl with the features of Marie-Thérèse.[1] The final three prints from the suite are portraits of Vollard.[8]
Picasso learned new techniques of etching during the suite, from relatively simple line etchings, through burin, dry point, aquatinting and sugar aquatinting learnt through Roger Lacourière [fr] in his workshop,[9] this enabled him to achieve more painterly effects.[1] Most of the prints were completed to Picasso's satisfaction in a single state, but others, especially the erotic compositions, exist in several states, fourteen in one case.
Collections with complete sets
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (September 2017) |
- Bibliothèque nationale de France, département des Estampes
- British Museum
- Colby College Museum of Art[10]
- Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid[11]
- Harry Ransom Center
- Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire[12]
- Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster [de][13]
- Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth[14]
- Museum Ludwig, Cologne[15]
- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas [es] (MACC)[citation needed]
- National Gallery of Australia[16][17]
- National Gallery of Canada
- Philadelphia Museum of Art[18]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Richard Dormant (2012-05-08). "Picasso, The Vollard Suite, British Museum, review". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2012-05-19.
- ^ Picasso, Pablo (1977). Picasso’s Vollard Suite. New York: H.N. Abrams. p. x. ISBN 9780810920767.
- ^ Gijs Van Hensbergen (1 October 2005). Guernica. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 268–. ISBN 978-0-7475-6873-5. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
- ^ Jane Kinsman (2009-03-07). "Monitor:Revolutionary Buildings". The Economist. Retrieved 2012-05-19.
- ^ a b c Anita Singh (2011-11-29). "City fund manager in £1m Picasso giveaway". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2012-05-19.
- ^ a b Gilmour, Pat. "Vollard Suite". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
- ^ Vollard Suite, Museo de Arte Abstracto Español (Fundación Juan March)
- ^ "Vollard Suite". Tate. Retrieved 2012-05-19.
- ^ "Atelier Lacourière & Frélaut". mchampetier.com (in French). 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-06-08. Retrieved 2014-06-08..
- ^ "Wayback Machine has not archived that URL". www.colby.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-04.[dead link]
- ^ Metropolitan Museum of Manila, accessed May 19, 2012
- ^ Prints, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, accessed May 19, 2012
- ^ "Picasso-Museum: Pablo Picasso - The Suite Vollard". www.kunstmuseum-picasso-muenster.de. Archived from the original on 2013-08-24.
- ^ Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth web page
- ^ The Graphic Collection at Museum Ludwig, accessed May 19, 2012
- ^ Picasso, Pablo. "Vollard Suite". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- ^ Kinsman, Jane. "Picasso". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- ^ "Philadelphia Museum of Art - Exhibitions - Picasso: The Vollard Suite".
Further reading
- Coppel, Stephen (2012). Picasso Prints: The Vollard Suite. British Museum Press. ISBN 9780714126838.
External links
- The Vollard Suite at the National Gallery of Australia
- A guide to collecting Picasso's prints - The Vollard Suite
- The Vollard Suite at MoMA (35)
- v
- t
- e
- Le petit picador jaune (1889)
- Science and Charity (1897)
- Le Moulin de la Galette (1900)
- The Appointment (1901)
- Child with a Dove (1901)
- La Gommeuse (1901)
- Yo, Picasso (1901)
- Portrait of Jaime Sabartés (1901)
- The Blue Room (1901)
- Femme aux Bras Croisés (1901-02)
- Old Jewish Man with a Boy (1903)
- The Old Guitarist (1903)
- La Vie (1903)
- Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto (1903)
- Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904)
- The Actor (1904-1905)
- Woman Ironing (1904)
- Girl in a Chemise (c. 1905)
- Acrobat and Young Harlequin (1905)
- Family of Saltimbanques (1905)
- Garçon à la pipe (1905)
- Girl on a Ball (1905)
- Les Noces de Pierrette (1905)
- Au Lapin Agile (1905)
- Young Girl with a Flower Basket (1905)
- Famille d'acrobates avec singe (1905)
- Boy Leading a Horse (1905–06)
- Portrait of Gertrude Stein (1905–06)
- Head of a Young Woman (1906)
- Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)
- Woman with a Fan (1908)
- Brick Factory at Tortosa (1909)
- Woman with a Fan (1909)
- Femme et pot de moutarde (1910)
- Girl with a Mandolin (1910)
- Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1910)
- Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1910)
- The Accordionist (1911)
- Le pigeon aux petits pois (1911)
- La Coiffeuse (1911)
- Violon et Raisins (1912)
- Bottle, Glass, Fork (1912)
- Ma Jolie (1912)
- Arlequin (1913)
- Ma Jolie (1914)
- Three Musicians (1921)
- Reading the Letter (c. 1921)
- The Pipes of Pan (1923)
- The Three Dancers (1925)
- Woman in a Red Armchair (1929)
- Le Repos (1932)
- Girl before a Mirror (1932)
- La Lecture (1932)
- Le Rêve (1932)
- Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932)
- Nude in a Black Armchair (1932)
- Femme à la montre (1932)
- Two Girls Reading (1934)
- Jeune Fille Endormie (1935)
- Guernica (1937)
- Portrait of Dora Maar (1937)
- Woman in Hat and Fur Collar (1937)
- The Weeping Woman (1937)
- Girl with a Red Beret and Pompom (1937)
- Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée (Marie-Thérèse Walter) (1937)
- Maya with Doll (1938)
- Woman's Head (1939)
- Dora Maar au Chat (1941)
- The Charnel House (1944–1945)
- Nature morte au poron (1948)
- Massacre in Korea (1951)
- Les Femmes d'Alger series (1955)
- Las Meninas (1957)
- The Fall of Icarus (1958)
- Bust of a Seated Woman (Jacqueline Roque) (1960)
- Jacqueline (1961)
- Femme au Chien (1962)
- Bust of a Woman (Marie-Thérèse) (1931)
- Tête de femme (Dora Maar) (1941)
- Bull's Head (1942)
- Baboon and Young (1951)
- Figure découpée (1963, 1964, 1965)
- Chicago Picasso (1967)
- Sylvette (1970)
- Vollard Suite (1930–1937)
- Minotaur Kneeling over Sleeping Girl (1933)
- Minotauromachy (1935)
- The Dream and Lie of Franco (1937)
- 347 Series (1968)
- Girl from Majorca (1905)
- Don Quixote (1955)
- Toros y toreros (1961)
- Le Taureau (1945-1946)
- Dove (1949)
- Desire Caught by the Tail (c. 1941)
- The Four Little Girls (c. 1947–48)
- Picasso and the Ballets Russes
- Parade
- The Three-Cornered Hat
- Pulcinella
- Le Train Bleu
- Mercure
- Musée Picasso (Paris)
- Musée Picasso (Antibes)
- Museu Picasso (Barcelona)
- Museo Picasso Málaga (Malaga)
- Museo Casa Natal (Malaga)
- Château de Boisgeloup (Normandy)
- Olga Khokhlova (first wife)
- Jacqueline Roque (second wife)
- Maya Widmaier-Picasso (daughter)
- Claude Picasso (son)
- Paloma Picasso (daughter)
- Diana Widmaier Picasso (granddaughter)
- Marina Picasso (granddaughter)
- Bernard Ruiz-Picasso (grandson)
- José Ruiz y Blasco (father)
(France)
- Bateau-Lavoir (Montmartre Paris)
- Villa La Vigie (Juan-les-Pins, Summer 1924)
- Château de Boisgeloup (Gisors, 1930-1937)
- Château of Vauvenargues (Vauvenargues, 1958-1962)
- Villa La Californie (Cannes, 1955-1961)
- Château de Vie (Mougins, 1961-1973)
television about
- Visit to Picasso (1949)
- Guernica (1950)
- The Mystery of Picasso (1956)
- The Adventures of Picasso (1978)
- Surviving Picasso (1996)
- Picasso: Magic, Sex & Death (2001)
- Modigliani (2004)
- Genius (2018 TV series)
- Carles Casagemas
- Carl Nesjar
- Lydia Corbett
- Lump (dog)
- Fundación Picasso
- Picasso. In the heart of darkness (1939-1945) (2019-2020 exhibition)
- Picasso & Lump (2006 book)
- Picasso referendum of Basel
- Theft of The Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria
- Portrait of Pablo Picasso (1915 painting)
- "If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso" (1924 poem)
- Woman, Bird, Star (Homage to Pablo Picasso) (1973 painting)
- "Pablo Picasso" (1976 song)
- The Blue Guitar (1977 etchings)
- Picasso at the Lapin Agile (1993 play)
- Picasso (crater)